Ordering in disguise: digital integration in built-environment practices

Abstract

The digital integration of built-environment practices aims to bridge a large variety of organizations to improve building delivery and operation. However, recent research on building information modelling (BIM) reported organizational challenges arising from digital integration. This suggests a need to develop a critical perspective on digital-integration-driven organizational change. Adopting a practicebased approach, this paper exposes the practice-level phenomenon responsible for the ongoing change to develop a critical understanding and enable better interventions. The concepts of 'simplification' and 'systematization' of digital integration are developed from previous literature and then used to explore and interrelate the practice-level experiences of digital integration (i.e. the experience of the change from within) and the emerging patterns of interactions (i.e. the picture of the change from outside) in a BIM-enabled design project. The concept of 'ordering in disguise' is proposed to capture this phenomenon. It shows that practitioners experience digital integration as various task-specific instances of unresponsive technology. However, they are unaware that their ongoing efforts to accommodate it actually further reinforce digital integration's simplification and systematization. This makes the unresponsiveness of technology harder to challenge, and ultimately forces the organization to change and adapt to it. Implications for management of practice are outlined.

Distilling agency in BIM-induced change in work practices

“…This analysis fits into the current theoretically-founded BIM discourse (Akintola et al, 2017(Akintola et al, , 2019Çıdık et al, 2017;Dainty et al, 2017;Papadonikolaki et al, 2019;Poirier et al, 2017;Sherratt et al, 2020). The data substantiates the subtle technology push through BIM tool developers as suggested in the literature, demonstrating the power that the construction industry seems to have handed to them, without intending to do so.…”

“…The critical gap is, first, one of a theoretical nature the need for nuance in the existing and emerging explanations of the diverse forms of change the industry is experiencing. This is also evident, for instance, in the recent BIM literature (Akintola et al , 2017, 2020; Çıdık et al , 2017; Dainty et al , 2017; Fox, 2014; Papadonikolaki and Wamelink, 2017; Sherratt et al , 2020). It is with this ongoing theoretical discourse that we have sought to engage.…”

AEC Students’ Perceptions of BIM Practice at Swinburne University of Technology

“…Perceptions towards BIM implementation generally consist of benefits, critical factors, risks, and challenges in BIM implementation according to multiple prior studies (e.g., Eadie, et al, 2013;Ahn et al, 2015;Jin et al, 2017a;Jin et al, 2017b). These studies all addressed the challenges encountered during BIM practice, including insufficient evaluation of BIM value, cultural resistance, lack of client demand, lack of BIM training, high investment in BIM resources, lack of relevant legislation or standards, and insufficient understanding of BIM technology (He et al, 2012;Sackeyet al, 2014;Tang et al, 2015;Çıdık et al, 2017). Most of these studies (Ku and Taiebat, 2011;Panuwatwanich et al, 2013;Sacks and Pikas, 2013) focused on the individual perceptions from the industry practitioners' perspective.…”

Investigation of individual perceptions towards BIM implementation-a Chongqing case study

“…There have also been multiple challenges that had been identified from previous studies, such as lack of competent project participants (Migilinskas et al , 2017), difficult prediction of BIM effects (Juan et al , 2017), limited training and technology support (Chien et al , 2014; Juan et al , 2017), insufficient policy and strategy development to cope with BIM technological movement (Lin, 2015). Other challenges or barriers encountered in BIM practice contain insufficient evaluation of BIM value, resistance at higher management levels due to cultural resistance, lack of demand from the client, higher initial investment, organizational change and adjustment in management pattern and insufficient understanding of BIM technology or practicability (He et al , 2012; Sackey et al , 2014; Tang et al , 2015; Lee and Yu, 2016; Çıdık et al , 2017). Ahmed et al (2017) further stated that the drivers and factors for BIM adoption, especially in the organizational level, had been disjointedly dispersed.…”